


Wanheda & the Hunter

by betts



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Blood Magic, Creature Fic, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fantasy, Ritual Public Sex, Soulmates, Stockholm Syndrome, Telepathic Bond, the author has no beef with crows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-19 05:24:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14867447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/pseuds/betts
Summary: To protect his sister from Death, the hunter must offer Wanheda his heart.A(n NSFW) fairy tale.





	Wanheda & the Hunter

**Author's Note:**

> I tend to cling to comedy but I'm feeling pretty emo so I wanted to write something BEAUTIFUL and DRAMATIC. 
> 
> Also, it turns out I'm like a 3 on the monsterfucker Kinsey scale, so here's some Bellarke creaturefic for you.
> 
> Note that I've chosen not to warn! A full list of warnings have been placed in the end note, including spoilers.

* * *

 

 

You are the beautiful half

Of a golden hurt.

_—Gwendolyn Brooks, "To Be in Love"_

 

* * *

 

The hunter kneels on the shore. His gun lies in front of him as a sacrifice, ammunition set aside. Across the river stands a mountain upon which evil men roam, and among them, their leader, Wanheda. Many say that to climb the mountain is impossible, that she and her army will kill you before you even cross the river. At the top of the mountain lay unspeakable riches, but to reach it, you must defeat Wanheda. Legend says if you kill Wanheda, you will receive her power. You will become commander of Death.

The hunter’s sister is ill with sun poison. He has watched her fade a little more each day. The blood treatments can no longer help; the healer says she has one lunar cycle left. Wanheda is the hunter’s only hope.

He has known others who have attempted to defeat her, to earn her riches and command Death. They come to the mountain and do not return.

When the hunter sought the counsel of the Elders, they told him he could not defeat Death, that no riches are worth the wrath of Wanheda.

I do not want riches, he told them. Nor do I want to command Death. I wish only for a single pardon.

The Elders spoke in hushed whispers into the comms forever in their ears, communicating to a higher power. They said: She may heed your request, if you offer something of equal value to the life you wish to pardon.

He gazed up at them on their high thrones, masked faces with dark holes for eyes staring down at him, shining jewelry, furs over kevlar.  

What could possibly be of equal value to a life? he asked.

More whispers.

There is nothing equal to a life but another, they said.

Now, as he had been directed, the hunter rests his palms on his knees and closes his eyes. If the Mountain Men wish to shoot him, he has nothing to defend himself. If Wanheda crosses the river — it is said she can do it in a single leap — she can slit his throat, and he will never see it coming. It is possible she will not arrive at all, will let him die of exposure or thirst.

Most likely, to prove himself, she will make him wait.

So he waits, precious time better spent with his sister. As the days pass, he grows weak, barely able to hold himself upright. He shivers through hours of night and sweats through the long span of day, feels his skin burn. Bugs bite his flesh and animals approach warily to see if he is dead. A panther circles him and still he sits, paying it no mind, listening to the low growl in its throat, as if a wall surrounds him, and the beast searches in frustration for an opening through. After many hours, it gives up.

On the fourth day, sunlight dances through the hunter’s eyelids. A sweet breeze encompasses him. The pangs of hunger and thirst have dissipated, replaced with an emptiness he has not felt since he was a child. He used to offer his meager scraps to his sister, insisting he ate earlier that day with the other apprentice guardsmen, that they fed him so full he nearly burst, and one day he would grow strong, stronger than everyone in the village.

But he was never an apprentice guardsman; he did not qualify, too small, too poor. Instead he spent his days with his dignity lodged in his throat, navigating the village seeking a pittance for odd jobs. He endured the snide remarks, jeering, and laughter about his mother, the town nightwoman. For years he struggled, until one day he found a dead body in an alleyway, freshly shot, gun still warm beside the man's head. The hunter looked about and, finding no one, stole the gun. He ran into the woods, where he shot a deer on his first try, and he and his family ate until they were sick. Bullets were easier to come by than food, and soon the villagers were paying him for meat, and he upgraded his gun to a rifle, and then an armory. They never went hungry again.

He hears a splash in the river, opens his eyes to see wide ripples where once there was stillness. His hope rises then falls when the water returns to its eerie quiet, as silent and clear as bathwater, by some magic of Wanheda.

Another disturbance, a white glow under the surface approaching the shore. He blinks to rid himself of the delirious fog that has come over him, and still the spectre remains, growing wider and brighter and closer, until it reaches the edge of the river. Two antlers pierce the water and rise, a head following with hair as red as blood. Alabaster skin cloaked in wet white cloth, an old dress, clinging to the curves of her body. She tilts her head right and left as she steps onto the shore. Her eyes are wide white orbs and her long fingers reach sharp points like chiseled bone. Around her thin neck is a string of teeth. She carries no weapon.

You have been waiting, she says, but her mouth does not move. It is as if she speaks thoughts into his mind.

When he opens his mouth to respond, he finds his throat raw, his voice barren.

Three days and three nights sat kneeling, she says. Defenseless.

She circles around him like the panther, feet bare and steps silent.

Do you seek riches? she asks.

No, he thinks, and he can feel, on instinct, that she receives the message, the same way one’s gaze meets another’s across a crowded room.

Do you wish to kill me?

I wish you no ill will, Wanheda.

She steps closer. He feels her at his side, a cold presence like opening a door in winter. The piercing tip of a single claw comes to rest under his chin and pulls his eyes upward. He is met with her sightless gaze as she continues tilting her head slowly like a confused beast.

What is it you seek? she asks. The pleasure of my company?

She smiles, baring a row of pointed teeth. A joke.

He would laugh were he not on the verge of collapse, but desperately, unable to conjure concrete thoughts, he shares an image of his dying sister, her blistered skin, failed blood treatments, the sun. Her small body withered and sweating in the heat of summer, on a hay-filled mattress that serves as their bed.

A pardon, he thinks.

A pardon from Death? she asks.

Yes.

He is come for her. It is her time.

She sends him an image in return, the same as he sent her, but as if a layer has been added, a darkness he can feel rather than see, like a murder of crows is waiting to swarm his sister’s weakening body.

You can stop him. You can command Death, the hunter thinks.

She sends him more images: soldiers on a battlefield from a war long past, a woman in labor, wrists covered in blood. She says, These are the deaths I impede.

Then she shows him the panther who had wanted to eat him, and — to his surprise — the dead man in the alley the moment the hunter stole the gun. Another layer creeps over the image, one of coldness like a frosted window. The same coldness comes over the first deer he shot, and he knows now that it was she who killed the man and the deer, who offered him the life he now leads.

I have followed you many years, Hunter. I have watched you grow and kept Death from taking you. Now you ask for more?

I did not know, he thinks, lowering his head.

She crouches in front of him, too close, sending a shiver down his back — pleasant, as if wading into a pond. He can smell her, the smell of wet rocks after rain, the sweet decay of nature. Her features are pointed and elfin, high cheekbones and a slender nose. Lips like a rose on white sand. So human, yet so animal. He is frightened, though he cannot tear his eyes away.

I have done you many favors, she tells him, but if it is a pardon you seek, then I will need something in return. What is it you offer?

A life, he thinks, remembering what the Elders told him. My life. It is yours.

She laughs, a guttural sound like the cawing of a large bird.

I have spent so long saving you and now you wish to die? You are no good to me dead, Hunter.

I will do anything. I will give you all that I have. I will become one of your Mountain Men.

She reaches up and cups his face in her palms, hard and cold like a sanded stone. His heart pounds with the instinct to flee, but he clenches his fists and remains still in her grasp.

It is your heart I want, Hunter. Is that something you can offer? Or have you given it to another?

He thinks of the barmaid who smiled at him so sweetly, who took him behind the bar and fell to her knees in front of him. The butcher’s young apprentice with green eyes and the devil’s smile, the way he tasted on the hunter’s tongue.

Not your body, she says, and presses a claw into his chest until it pierces his armor and reaches skin. Your heart.

He lowers his eyes and thinks, My heart is mine to give, though worth very little.

She smiles again, this time with her lips. She would look almost human were it not for her empty eyes.

It is worth everything to me, she says.

Then it is yours to do with what you wish.

And you will learn to love me as I ask to be loved?

I will. Until Death comes for me.

Sweet boy, she says, Death does not dare come for those whose heart I hold.

Finding his voice once more, he says aloud, Then I will be yours. Forever.

You do not know the treasure you give me.

She stands and holds out her hand to him. He takes it and climbs to his feet, legs prickling with numb. The earth spins beneath him and he thinks he will fall were it not for an invisible force holding him up.

Come, she says, we will prepare the ritual.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

He does not know how he makes it up the mountain. Blackness stretches between blasts of color: the greenery of forest, orange of sunset, blue glowing butterflies and a rainbow of flora that parts as they pass. Wanheda guides him, hand in hand, rushing quickly up the mountain at inhuman speed. Beneath him, his feet are moving, though of their own accord, and despite his exhaustion, he does not struggle. The air is thinner up here, and his breath comes in rapid gasps, wilderness beginning to blur around him. He succumbs to the blackness once more, and awakens on a bed in a white room.

A bag on a pole is tethered to his arm. He has never seen a place like this. His clothes have been taken and replaced with a white pair of shorts. He looks at his hands. No dirt in his fingernails, nor caked over his skin from his days of idleness. He runs a hand through his hair — soft, clean. He sits up.

Wanheda, he thinks. Then aloud: Wanheda. His voice is scratchy and cracked. A glass of water rests by his bed and he picks it up and guzzles it. It is still not enough to satiate. He stands from the bed, feeling much stronger than before. The floor beneath him is frigid and smooth, reflecting the white lights above which turn his skin almost blue. He walks to the door, taking the bag and pole with him, and looks out a round window. Beyond it is a white hall, across from him another door to a room a twin of his own, empty.

He tries the knob. The door is unlocked, and though heavy, opens easily. He is about to step outside when a large black bird flies into the room, nearly grazing the top of his head. On instinct, he crouches down, almost falling, then hears a peal of laughter behind him.

A woman with hair as black as the raven’s wings is grinning at him. Like him, like Wanheda, she is wearing white. She looks human except for the inquisitive depth of her eyes, also like a raven’s. She appears to flutter as she moves.

Feeling better? she asks.

I am thirsty, he replies.

From nowhere, a pitcher emerges in her grasp and she pours more water into the glass. He takes it from her and drinks, then holds it out for more. The pitcher never empties. When he has had his fill, he sets the glass down and sits at the edge of the bed. She gently removes the tether from his arm and says, It is time for the ritual. Are you ready?

Is Wanheda there?

She is.

Then I am ready.

He follows her through corridors and down steps. This time he is lucid and takes stock of his surroundings. No windows, no sunlight. The floor is smooth; he has no shoes, but also no need for them. The air smells stale. Dust has settled over every surface. They cross a wide, domed room with long tables, at the head of it, an empty throne. As they go deeper into the mountain, they come to a twisting staircase spiraling down. Music thrums from below. The walls are made of shining black stone and fire flickers across it. The staircase rattles as he climbs down, and the further he goes, the louder the music, a pounding rhythm like a racing heartbeat, drums and the clapping of many hands and singing voices in synchronicity.

The cavern is high, the ceiling so black he cannot see where it ends, like a starless night. Hundreds of people are crowded in the space, arm to arm, writhing and dancing. It is so dark he can barely see them, fractures of movement, glinting eyes watching him.

In front of him, the raven takes flight as a bird once more. The sea of people part for her, and the hunter follows the open path. Ahead of him stands Wanheda, naked and glowing, the brightest light in the cavern, as white as the sun at midday. She is waiting on a platform as high as the tops of her people’s heads. Her blank eyes are trained on him as he approaches, smile widening as she opens her arms to him. He climbs the stairs until he is in front of her, and the raven comes to perch on her shoulder. Though his knees are sore, a gentle thought is guiding him to kneel.

Welcome, Hunter, she says.

Wanheda, he thinks.

The raven conjures a small yellow object and drops it in Wanheda’s palm. She holds it out to the hunter. He opens his mouth and she places it on his tongue. It tastes of the plain sweetness of sugar, and he swallows it.

He wonders what happens next, nervousness thrumming under his skin. He does not intend the thought to go to Wanheda, but she replies, Now we banish Death from your blood.

A surge of desire washes over him, so intense that he falls forward onto his hands. Flames lap over his skin and heavy pressure grows in his groin. He can feel Wanheda laughing in his head.

She guides him to standing and, without touching him, ushers him to a table, which he climbs upon and lies down. The drum beats in his chest. Above him he can see nothing but infinite blackness, as if his eyes were closed. His shorts have disappeared, and he can feel himself harden against his belly, his arousal almost painful.

Wanheda climbs over him, lowers herself onto him until they are one. Her skin is cool against his overheated form, and he clutches her as she rolls her hips to the beat of the music.

Are you mine? Wanheda asks.

I am yours, he thinks. I am yours. I am yours.

She runs a hand up his chest; a claw curls behind his neck and digs into his skin, slices deep into the flesh. He cries out in pain, feels blood spilling from the wound, pulsing out of him with each beat of his heart. Against all reason, it seems to gather around him, rising like a tide, threatening to drown him. His limbs weaken as if emptied, his entire being narrowed to the space where he and Wanheda are joined. This emptiness is different than that of thirst or starvation; it is an ethereal sense, a draining of selfhood, as if his soul has been opened and poured out at Wanheda’s feet.

Wanheda, he thinks, or perhaps screams, though he cannot feel the voice in his throat. There is no more sound, just the music as a steady pulse somewhere inside him.   

Do not be afraid, Hunter, she says. She is everywhere. He can no longer see her, only feel her body rise and fall over him like an angry sea.

You are mine, she reminds him, and I will care for you and protect you always. Do you promise the same of me?

I promise.

Finally, the emptiness overtakes him, and he is met once more with darkness.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

He does not awaken in the white room again, but on a bed of furs. He looks down at himself and sees no blood. He reaches to the back of his neck and feels the healed slit of his wound, a hard protrusion underneath. Sunlight streams through windows placed high above them, covered in fine-woven tapestries. He places two fingers to the pulse on his neck and feels none.

I am dead, he says.

You are beyond Death, Wanheda replies. She is crouched in a corner, watching him. She glows more faintly here, yet she is more frightening somehow, perhaps because she seems more real in the light of day. In darkness, she has the comfort of a nightmare: something that capable of hurting him, but cannot.

In front of him is a feast across a long table. He throws off the furs and rushes to it, where he picks up an apple and bites into it ravenously. Before he can take another bite, he finds a leg of lamb and rips off a hunk with his teeth. A chalice of wine has been poured for him, and he downs it before moving to a loaf of bread.

Wanheda laughs and approaches from behind. She circles an arm around him and places a cool hand on his belly, presses her forehead to his shoulder.

You may find that though you have not eaten, you are not hungry.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sees she is right. The food, while delicious, does not satisfy him. He was already satisfied.  

Though you cannot die, she adds, nor are you alive.

Then what am I?

She circles to his front, cups his face in her hand, and reaches up on her toes to kiss him. Her lips are soft; he takes her hand and kisses her in turn, gently, opens his mouth to her. Her teeth are sharp but the threat of them entices him. She says, You are mine. Invisible to Death.

Can I command it? he thinks.

She pulls away and smiles at him, takes him by the hand and guides him back to the bed of furs. He follows her down, sliding between her open legs as he continues kissing her.

Not yet, she says, but he is already distracted, kissing down her neck and chest. He licks and bites at her breasts and feels her approval in his mind. She guides him with a silent thought downward, until he is met with her center, which he peppers with more kisses before laving with his tongue. She is the palest shade of pink, tastes like clean river water. She takes his fingers eagerly inside her and runs her claws through his hair.

She mirrors her own feeling back at him, so he can feel the heat building like an echo in himself. He hitches his hips against the fur, soft against his aching hardness, not the friction he would like, but it spurs him forward. He feels her pulse around his fingers; her back arches from the bed. She remains silent, but the air crackles around them, as if reality itself threatens to break.

He thinks he should be breathless, so he is, though he recognizes it is out of habit. He does not need to breathe, but, like eating, it feels good, familiar. A quiet invitation enters his mind and he climbs up again, kissing her, taking himself in hand and pushing inside her. She wraps her stonelike legs around his waist and they meet a rhythm, feeling his own pleasure as well as hers, as if her body is a mere extension of his own. Her breath ghosts his neck, cold; she bites his throat and he feels the points of her teeth pierce his skin, her claws drag down his back. The sweet pain is overwhelming, and he is unable to hold himself back. He shudders and comes, the peak longer and more intense than he has ever felt, doubled and expanding like standing between two mirrors. Pleasure stretching out into the distance, a wide bell rung.

He rests beside her as she takes a wet cloth from a bowl of water and cleans his bloodied skin.

You are a good lover, she says, amused.

Thank you. You as well.

Are you happy?

I am happy, he thinks, though he knows she can feel the tendril of doubt in his words.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

The life of Wanheda is a coin of pleasure and pain. She flips it many times a day, yet seems to have no aversion to the extremes of either, as if they are one. Though he does not need sleep, he continues to do so, if for no other reason than maintaining a daily cycle, offering himself a break from wakefulness. Wanheda does not sleep, but watches over him, her faint cold glow a calming presence beside him. When he awakens, she crawls overtop of him and rides him as the sunrise climbs through their windows. Then they bathe in the spring and spend the morning hunting. He insists on his human habits, clothing and armor and guns, but she prefers her hands and teeth, naked body attuned to the pulse of the forest, the breathing lifeforce from which she gathers sustenance for her people. She is a predator: quick, silent, merciless. She crouches down, a hand on the earth and head tilted to listen for the flutter of a wing, the clack of a hoof. Then, she lunges, slits her prey’s throat, and carries the beast on her back, some days her kill as large as a full-grown elk, her white skin dripping with its blood.

By afternoon, they bathe once more, return to the mountain and rest. In the evening, they feast in the great hall, Wanheda on the throne and he kneeling beside her. She feeds him by hand, and though at first this bothered him, reminded him too much of his years begging for scraps, the awe with which her people regarded it bolstered him; it is a point of reverence to be fed by Wanheda. At night, they lie together, sometimes under her furs and sometimes in the forest, beneath the stars, and she tells him stories of the Watchers who wait for them beyond the sky, the ones whose witness make real the thread of Fate.

Wanheda’s tells him of her people, survivors of the Great War, hidden in the barracks under the mountain and sealed off for a hundred years from the poison of the sun. Wanheda, too, is a survivor of the war; her blood can heal the poisoned. She has trained the strongest of her people to protect the mountain from intruders. She protects her people from Death, and in turn they worship her as a god.

The hunter thinks of his sister often. When he does, Wanheda slides him images of her in the village, his mother in a schoolhouse, teaching children about the times before the Great War. They look healthy and happy. Once, while he is hunting, Wanheda sends him a thought so quickly and eagerly he trips on a root a nearly falls: his sister, signing up to become an apprentice guardsman.

No, he says.

Yes! It just happened. I could not wait to show you.

She cannot join the Guard. It is too dangerous.

It is what she has always wanted, to be as strong as you. To save you and your people from the things that breed nightmares.

I have fought hard so she does not have to.

Wanheda places a hand on his arm. He turns to her and she embraces him as one would embrace a startled child.

We can keep Death away from those we love, she says, but we cannot keep life away from them, too.

Much later, they are lying in bed tracing shapes on each other’s bodies, and Wanheda says, Oh.

She sends him a picture of a man, a guard, strong and dark. He is smiling down at the hunter’s sister, and his sister is smiling up in turn.

The hunter says, I do not like this.

She has met the man to whom she will soon give her heart, Wanheda says.

I see that. And I do not like it.

Months pass. The green summer leaves harden to orange and fall from the trees, making noise of their hunts. Snow comes in thick sheets and silences their steps once more. The hunter is no longer bothered by the heat of summer, the rains of fall, or the frigid chill of winter. He knows only Wanheda’s body and the thrill of the hunt: his daily worship and sacrifice.

Though they rarely speak, the hunter finds his mind has started to untangle from its knot of small thoughts, the petty mundanity of life. It opens to her, so he no longer knows which thoughts or feelings belong to whom. Some days, it is as if he can see out of her eyes, and she his. Some days, when he is dripping in the blood of his slaughter, when he looks down upon the mutilated bodies of his prey, it is as if he is, and always has been, the commander of Death.

One evening in spring, nearly a year after he gave his heart to her, she says, You do not yet love me, Hunter.

I am sorry, he admits. He is sharpening his knives on a strap of leather while she lies in bed, head propped on her arm, watching him, as she always does.

What can I do to make you love me? she asks.

Nothing. You have done everything I asked.

Yet still I frighten you.

You are a frightening beast, he says playfully.

She does not laugh.

You can never truly love that which you fear, she says.

Then he hears her speak aloud. Her voice is a sweet rasp: Is this better?

He looks up from his knife and she has transformed — red hair now long curls of dusty blonde, antlers gone, skin flushed pink. Her eyes are no longer blank white orbs but a human’s eyes, blue. Her teeth are small and squared and she is smiling at him. A mole dots the space above her lip.

I think you are beautiful as you were, the hunter says.

Beauty is often terror. Come, Hunter, lie with me.

So he does. The mirage of her appearance shimmers around her, and he admits to himself, this close, she is unspeakably beautiful in a way he did not realize he has missed. He kisses her and she is warm; he can almost feel blood running through her body, under his palms. Whereas she is always silent, now she moans into his mouth. Whereas she is always guiding him, taking what she wants, now she is pliant beneath him, her mind torn from him as if they are two people desperately grasping at the other’s desire and hoping to catch their satisfaction.

She rolls on her belly and climbs to her knees, looks back at him with a smile. He has never taken her like this, and he finds his desire is as it used to be, before he gave himself to her, the simple want of being inside another without becoming another.

When he enters her, she is tight and warm. She cries out. Her body yields to him, soft like human flesh, as if her muscles are weaker than his. He knows, under the facade, she is an immortal huntress of stone and sun. But for now, she is just a girl of bone and blood, and she lets him take her, as if he is the one who owns her heart.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

Another year passes. The trees have bloomed in pink and white, falling petals that too easily distract him from his hunt. Even Wanheda has become lazy in the year’s newfound warmth. She wants only to swim in the springs and watch the sun pass across the sky. She wears her disguise often now, though despite his efforts he still does not love her. She knows this, and does not hide her aching heart from him.

She comes out from beneath a waterfall, pushing her wet hair back. Droplets of water slide between her bare breasts. She swims over to where he is sat on the shore, gun across his lap, waiting for her next instruction. She sits beside him and rests her head on his shoulder.

What is the matter, Hunter? she asks, though she does not need to. She knows already, as she knows all his thoughts. Her questioning is merely a courtesy.

I worry for my sister.

She is well, Wanheda says, and sends him an image of his sister, fully armored, laughing with her new love. The hunter recognizes the place, the guardsman barracks. She is off duty.

I miss her. She does not know what happened to me. I want to go to her. Show her I am well.

Wanheda takes his chin in her hand. Her facade flickers in the rays of sun passing through rain-laden clouds.

You must not see her, Hunter.

Why?

Because you will only see her thrice more in this lifetime.

How do you know this? You cannot tell the future.

It is the bargain I made with Death.

And after three times?

Death will come for her once again. There are those whom I protect from Death, like my people, and those I make invisible, like you. Those I protect will all one day succumb to him. We will not.

So let us make her one of us. Let us make her invisible.

And take her away from all she has earned? All that you have given her?

I cannot live without her.

You do not have to live without her, for you are not living.

I must see her.

I do not want you to.

Will you stop me?

In lieu of an answer, she pulls away from him. They are displeased with each other for the first time, a twin feeling bouncing between them, an irritating reverberation like an angry bell, until at last she severs their mental connection.

She stands and says, I will not control you. I own only your heart, not your body or mind. You may do what you wish, but I remind you, Hunter: Death wants your sister’s heart as badly as I once wanted yours. He is counting down.

She dives into the water and swims back under the waterfall, toward the entrance to the mountain.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

The hunter climbs down the mountain with ease. It is only now that he will soon return to his village that he understands how much he has changed. He was never this fast or strong in his mortal life. He could never leap across wide streams or captivate an animal to stillness with his stare. He could not hold his breath underwater for more than a handful of minutes, or catch fish between his hands. Unlike Wanheda, he continues to wear clothes, though he has no need for shoes; they are heavy and noisy, and his bare feet know the ground well. He rushes down the mountain as quickly as Wanheda had first dragged him up it. His gun is fastened around his shoulder, and before the sun reaches its peak, he is at the entrance to his village.

He has been gone years but little has changed. He does not wish to be spotted so he skirts around the town in the woods surrounding it. He peeks into the back window of his old house and finds it empty, but it is unlocked so he slides it open and climbs inside. There he sets his gun on the dining table and waits for his sister to come home on her lunch hour. Their old bed has been upgraded to a mattress, and he lies on it, relaxing and enjoying the comforts of home. He does not notice that he dozes off.

He wakes to the sound of a gun cocking. He rises out of bed and snatches the gun out of his sister’s hands, faster than she can process. She looks at her hands, now empty, and he slides the magazine out, tosses it on the mattress.

What do you want? she asks. She is wearing guardsman armor, a badge on her chest with an insignia. She has climbed to a higher rank than he anticipated.

I wanted to see you.

Why? Who are you?

I am your brother. Do you not recognize me?

You are not my brother. My brother was a man. You are a beast.

The hunter looks down at his hands and sees the same skin and knuckles and nails he has always seen.

I do not understand, he says. I am your brother.

He catches a glimpse of a reflection in the metal of her badge — a shifting, black shape. He runs to his mother’s room and picks up her hand mirror. Behind him he can hear his sister put the magazine back in the gun and cock it once more, but it does not matter; he cannot die.

In the mirror he sees a face as dark as Wanheda’s is light, as if his mere presence lessens the sun streaming through the windows, as if light itself bends around him. His eyes are black and blank as Wanheda’s, his teeth as sharp. Instead of antlers he has the curled horns of a ram, and where there once were freckles, white dots splash across his cheeks like stars.

He puts the mirror down. He can see them now, not hands, but claws. His perception was a mirage. He does not know how long he has been like this.

He turns back to his sister, whose gun is still trained on his heart. He cannot tell her it is no longer there.

I am sorry, Sister. I did not mean to frighten you. I wanted only to let you know I was well.

You are like Wanheda. One of the undying, on the mountain.

I am.

Then you are not my brother. My brother would never become a monster.

I did it for you.

He takes a step toward her. She takes a step back.

I will leave, but before I go, I must tell you: I will see you two more times. On the last, Death will come for you, and there will be nothing I can to do stop him.

She shoots. The bullet lodges in his chest, but the pain, the blood no longer matters. He quickly climbs out the window from which he entered and rushes into the cover of the woods.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

Wanheda is waiting for him at the river that separates the mountain from the village, wearing her disguise.

You did not tell me, he says.

You are hurt.

She places a gentle hand on his bullet wound.

I am a monster, he says.

Then you think me a monster too?

She digs her thumb and finger into the hole and pulls out the bullet, holds it to the sun to inspect.

You did not tell me I would turn into you.

You did not ask.

I gave you my heart.

And I freed you from Death.

She flicks the bullet into the river, where its ripples make a small red cloud. The hunter’s wound is leaking. There is no reason to stopper it.

I do not want this anymore, he says. I would rather face Death than my sister’s revulsion.

It does not matter what you want. Your heart is mine to do with what I wish.

Through his fury, he spits, I do not love you, Wanheda.

That does not matter either, she says, reaching up and cupping his face in her bloodied hands. I carry enough love to fill both our hearts.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

It is a long road to mend what has been broken. She gives him space; her kindness enrages him more than her cruelty. She does not force him to hunt with her, so he does not. She does not have him take his meals at her feet, nor does she touch him at night. She does not open the channel between their minds. His thoughts meet silence. They travel aimlessly, never beyond his own head.

He goes days without sleeping or eating. He has no thoughts or feelings — he is empty. He spends time with the raven, whose company is irritating at best and infuriating at worst. Their conversations are dull and one-sided; she does not hunt. She asks intrusive questions, but when curiosity is returned to her, she flies away.

Now, in the darkest days of winter, when there are only a handful of hours of light, Wanheda and the hunter have taken an early bed. She is splayed out on the furs, watching him play a solitary card game across the room. She is not wearing her disguise; he assumes he is not either, though he never knows. Some days he looks down at his arms and sees human flesh; other days, the black claws of the undying. He cannot yet control it.

She opens the channel between their minds — for the first time since the day he saw his sister — and says, You still fear me, Hunter.

The hunter flips a card and pretends the channel is still closed.

You worship me the same way my people do.

Do you not wish to be worshipped?

Not by you. By you, I wish to be loved.

I exist only to serve you, Wanheda.

I do not want your service. What will it take for you to love me?

Turn me back into a man.

I cannot do that. Death will come for you.

Then let me go.

She laughs. Where will you go? Your village?

I do not know, but I would be free.

Fine then. You are free. You may go. But know, Hunter, you will always return. We are woven together by Fate.

The hunter throws his cards on the ground. He glares at her, and says aloud, Then I hope Fate has sharpened her shears.

Wanheda laughs again.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

Wanheda is right — the hunter has nowhere to go. He has never truly had a place. His sister is better and healthier and happier without him. Even his mother seems to have found peace. On the mountain, the hunter has value and purpose. He is loved by Wanheda and he hunts for her people. He pleases her at night and in the morning and sometimes the afternoon, too. He does what he is told, and until now, has not realized how much satisfaction he takes in being Wanheda’s lover, lieutenant, confidant, knight. He had not realized how much solace he felt in sharing his thoughts and feelings with her across the divide of their bodies, to feel her consistent hum of acknowledgement and acceptance. She knows him, knows all of him, and still she loves him. No matter what he does or where he goes, she will always love him.

They are in the library. The books here are wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Thousands of them, all from before the Great War. The hunter wishes he could bring his mother here, show her the long history that resides in these walls. He does not have the affinity for reading that Wanheda does. He is not educated, and while he can make out letters and sometimes words, he cannot string stories from them. But he is sure to follow her here when she comes to pick out her books, pretending to wait for her next command. She settles into an armchair and he at her feet, soft rug under his knees, and he rests his head on her thigh. While she reads, he closes his eyes, and lets the words make pictures in her mind that she passes easily to his.

He must doze off, because he awakens to the feel of her fingers in his hair, and she asks, Would you like to know the story of how I came to love you?

There is a story?

There is always a story.

Then I will hear it.

I felt your birth, she replies. Among all the hearts in the world, it was yours that beat the loudest. It felt as if my own heart were beating once more. I had felt nothing like it in a hundred years. It haunted me; I thought perhaps Death had finally found me. I went on a journey to meet Fate, to seek her counsel, and she told me a prophecy: I would one day stop this beating heart, and if I did not, it would drive me mad.

You could have simply killed me.

I tried, Hunter. I hated you and your incessant heart so much that I wanted you to die the slowest and cruelest death. I nearly starved you, but when Death came for you, I was jealous. I did not want him to have you. I did not want anyone to have you. I realized then I had already been driven mad by it, by you. So I offered you salvation, a means for your own survival, and you took it and flourished as I knew you would, and your heart grew stronger. Even when I was not with you, I could feel it beat slowly as you slept and quickly as you ran.

And then you came to me.

No, Hunter. You came to me. And for that I am sorry. I did not know that Fate had started us on the path we now walk.

You say that as if it is a bad thing.

The hunter looks up at her. The book is lying open on her lap. She stares into the darkened fireplace as if Death will leap out and take them.

Death felt cheated, she says, quietly now. I had promised him to you, then protected you from him. He came for your sister instead. By then I had accepted the madness. I had fallen for your heart which beat inside my hollow bones, yet I did not expect you would seek my help. I did not expect that I could stop your heart by owning it, by turning you into me. So you see, Hunter, I say you are mine, but in truth, I have always been yours.

You did not tell me.

I thought you would resent me.

Everything that has happened, it is your fault.

It is.

I will never love you.

Then I would have you kill me.

Why?

Because I will not stop loving you, Hunter. I have nothing to offer you but my life.  

Wanheda stands from armchair and takes a dusty silver object from a desk — a letter opener. She hands it to him, falls to her knees, her back to him, and swipes her hair over her shoulder. On the back of her neck rests a small protrusion, like the one he received the day he gave his heart to her.

Kill me, Hunter, and rid me the misery of being unloved by you.

You would let me kill you?

I am asking you. I have wronged you. I deserve your scorn.

The hunter places the point to the bottom of the protrusion, presses until a bubble of crimson mars her porcelain skin.

What will happen if I remove this? he asks.

I will become visible to Death and he will swiftly take his vengeance.

The hunter hesitates.

I cannot, he says, dropping the blade from his grip. It clatters to the floor.

She turns toward him, leans forward and presses a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

If you cannot kill me, she says, then one day you will learn to love me.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

Years pass. He has accepted that loving Wanheda is inevitable, the will of Fate; he assumes it will be a lightning strike, a sudden awakening. He is wrong, but not entirely. Wanheda is disguised today, wearing a ragged lacy dress that may have once been a ballgown and is too large for her — it drags on the ground, sags over her curves. Her hair is braided with tendrils of wildflowers. She has a book in her teeth as she climbs her favorite tree to lie in its branches and read.

Their morning hunt was successful, but now it is afternoon and there is nothing to do. With no work to be done, he has little choice but to shoulder his gun and climb with her, settle at her side in the wide berth of the tree and rest his head on her soft stomach.

It is not a lightning strike at all. He sees now that loving Wanheda is like wading into the sea. It lapped at his feet curiously at first, but it was he who had to take each step deeper, until the warm water reached his ankles and knees, hips and waist. Now, after so many years of his cautious steps, he realizes the water is at his neck, threatening to pull him under. And so as Wanheda reads, her mind too distracted with her own thoughts to attend to his, the hunter finally slips under, succumbs to the tide, lets his love for her overtake him. He sinks and sinks, drowns without fighting, and knows he will never come up for air.

That night, their lovemaking begins in the grass, playful wrestling, tumbling and laughing, until the hunter is so overcome with love and its accompanying lust that he pins her, kisses her deeply, feels her mind shift quickly from play to arousal. Fireflies lazily dot the field. Crickets and bullfrogs sing to them. He enters her and she gasps into his mouth.

Hunter, she thinks, what is this?

You know, he replies.

He can feel her search his mind, find it empty except for its single remaining current of love. A love like destiny, like prophecy, like Fate had spun their hearts as one on her loom.

Even their closeness, their oneness of body and spirit, is not enough to contain Wanheda’s joy. Underneath him her disguise shifts, flickers, slides off like a silk sheet, and she is Wanheda once again, blank eyes and crimson hair. The hunter sheds his own disguise and it is as if he is finally untethered. He releases his self-governed restraints and takes his first free breath. He can see them clearly now, his black claws, speckled skin, horns curling over his head and fangs in his mouth.

The ground shudders beneath them and the air begins to stretch apart. Reality trembles in fear of their love, and soon they are lifted from the ground entirely, limbs entwined, bodies locked together. The hunter can feel everything — the life in each blade of grass, breath of every beast, churning heat of the stars above. The infinite expanse of sky and the Watchers beyond it, looking down at them in witness of their love, to make it real, make it known.

The air grows thinner the higher they get. Below them, the mountain is a dark stretch of land under clouds glowing by moonlight. Wanheda’s legs are wrapped around his waist; their lovemaking is fierce, painful. They peak as one. The earth quakes. Trees fall. Animals and mortals rush to safety and shelter, but Death is too afraid to appear.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

They hold a celebration of sorts in the great hall. The raven officiates. Wanheda is wearing a tattered gown and the hunter wears ceremonial armor. Wanheda’s people — now his people, too — make a wide, quiet audience. He holds Wanheda’s hands between his. The raven is speaking a language he does not understand, but grasps pieces of translation through Wanheda’s mind. A binding of souls, a plea with the Watchers that should Death take them, they will find each other once more beyond the sky.

They say in unison: We allow the Watchers witness.

After, the people feast. Wine is taken out of storage. Music plays and the tables are pushed aside for dancing. Wanheda takes the hunter by the hand and guides him to the floor. She slides something into his palm — a yellow pill — and smiles at him. He swallows it, and soon the floor turns liquid below him, and the bodies moving against his are fire-hot. Wanheda’s body is in his arms and he sees double: the beast and the beauty, but he does not know which is which. It is all Wanheda, and it is Wanheda he loves. He kisses her and she tastes of barely ripe strawberries, faint flesh of their earlier hunt. When he opens his eyes again, they are naked on the throne, and she is on top of him, her back to him, facing the writhing mass of dancers who are themselves in the throes of pleasure, and he is thrusting into her. He waits on the precipice of release, the heavy second before rainfall. Wanheda is poised with him, neither toppling over; they wait forever at the edge, looking out at the drop.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

Wanheda is carving the meat from a deer when she gasps and drops her hatchet. The hunter is on the other side of the mountain, securing his own kill for the day, when he feels the disturbance, a reverberation in her that reaches to him, and though it does not take clear shape, he can feel its darkness sweeping over them.

He rushes to her, finds her near the springs.

I am sorry, Hunter, she says. She stumbles into his embrace, her bloody arms grasping his so she does not fall.

He catches her and asks, What is it? What has happened?

She presses her forehead to his chest. An image comes to his awareness slowly, as if apprehensive. His mother was robbed, shot. Now she lay in bed, healers unable to stop the internal bleeding. Hundreds of crows perch around her near-lifeless body, Death waiting patiently to take her. He sees his sister, too, waiting with her, holding her hand. She is commander of the Guard now.

I must go to her, the hunter says.

This is how it ends, Wanheda replies.

You do not know that.

I do know, Hunter. And I know you must go. I do not resent you for it.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

He carries a gun on his back as he descends the mountain. He is clothed, a heavy hood over his head. He looks at his hands and believes he is as mortal as he can appear. At the mouth of the village, he enters with a caravan of merchants. He keeps his head down as he crosses directly through the center of town to reach his old home. He is neither spotted nor looked upon. There, he looks into the windows, finds his mother alone. He enters through the front door and goes to her bedroom, kneels by her side and takes her hand in his. Her skin feels like paper and her breath rattles in her chest. Crows perch around him, watching. He cannot see them, but he knows Death is near.

It is her time, Death says. His voice feels like wind, quiet and urgent.

It does not have to be, the hunter says.

Fate wills it. The road to the End begins here, Hunter.

The hunter knows it is true, can feel the prophecy slot into place, a rightness like a single note rung clear.

I am sorry, Mother, the hunter says. I am sorry for leaving. I hope you have had a good life without me.

Slowly she looks to him, eyes nearly as white as Wanheda’s.

Son, she says, a scratched wisp of a sound. Will you let Death take me?

I will. He is here, waiting for me to say goodbye.

She reaches out and touches his face with shaking fingers. He leans into her touch.

The door opens and his sister enters: gaunt, middle-aged, flecks of white in her once-black hair. She carries with her a shadow of danger, of inevitable warfare. A dagger is in her hand, which she points at him.

You may look like my brother, but you are not him. I can see the beast under your skin. You wear my brother’s face as a mask. Do not dishonor him. Show your true face.

The hunter cannot deny it. It has been too many years; he has changed too much. Her brother is gone, and the beast inside him reigns. He lowers his hood and allows the facade to slip away.

His mother’s chest jumps with the inability to breathe. He places his hand on it and feels the rapid patter of her heart like a frightened rodent. He wills it to stillness; it grows quiet under his palm. She relaxes, final breath let loose, open eyes unseeing. The crows quickly swarm her, take her soul in their beaks and carry it to the Watchers.

He closes her eyes, and looks to his sister, whose own eyes have glassed over.

I wish you had never come here.

It was her time. She was suffering, Sister.

Do not call me that, Beast.

I have done what I came for, and I will leave again. The next time you see me, you will die.

I cannot let this happen again. The mountain holds riches and power, and we must use them to rid this village of its crime, its poverty. I will take my army and storm the mountain. I will kill Wanheda and become commander of Death.

Outside, he can see them, a crowd amassing around the house, peering through the windows. His sister’s lover approaches quickly, taller than the rest, parting the crowd to make his way toward the door.

Then we will die together, the hunter says, and lifts the hood over his head.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

The army comes first for Wanheda’s people. The Mountain Men fall against their massive numbers. They open the doors, leaking the sun poison in, sickening them slowly, painfully. Wanheda and the raven ready the blood treatments, gather the dying masses into the deepest barracks where there is no light, no poison. Thousands of crows perch on branches, waiting. A darkness has settled over the mountain, and with it, a heavy snowfall, as if to calm the battle with a beloved blanket.

The hunter watches the army climb the hill toward them. They are carrying weapons and fire.

I have done this, Wanheda, he says. My sister has come for me.

This is not your fault, nor hers, nor Death’s, but Fate’s. Fate has woven our ending.

I do not want to die.

The Watchers do not want us to die, either.

Wanheda kisses him for what he knows will be the last time. The army approaches from all sides, and so they fight — Wanheda with her claws and the hunter with his gun. She roars with fury, bullets piercing her body, takes down a half dozen in a single stroke. The hunter shoots, and shoots, until he is out of bullets, and then he drops his gun and jumps into battle, swiping claws across chests, ripping out throats. Soldiers drop around them, their once-white meadow stained red.

When the last soldier has fallen, the hunter realizes he has lost sight of Wanheda. He calls out for her, and hears a shrill cry. He takes a gun from a fallen body and runs toward the sound, finds Wanheda kneeling in front of the hunter’s sister, under her favorite tree, a knife slicing open the back of her neck. Wanheda screams again, and an agonizing pain rips through him, followed by the deepest silence he has felt in years. Their connection is severed.

The Elders told me there is only one way to kill Wanheda, his sister says. She holds up a small metal chip that glints in the light.

If the hunter still had his heart, it would shatter. 

Sister, he says, raising his gun to her. I am sorry, but it is as Fate wills it. May we meet again beyond the sky.

He shoots. She stares at him, stunned, as she falls.

He goes to Wanheda and kneels in front of her. Her body is riddled with bullets. Her throat is full of blood which she coughs out onto the snow. She says aloud, This is our End. Let no one command Death any longer.

In the distance, sirens wail. The army has opened the barracks to let the sun poison seep into the deepest parts of the mountain. The hunter can feel a hundred hearts beat slowly into stillness.

The hunter leans down and bares his neck to her. She sinks her teeth over the chip, rips it out. His true form falters and slides off, and as she is again just a girl, so he is a boy. She spits it into the snow. She is shaking, and gasping, and falls into his arms.

I do not want to be without you, the hunter says.

Nor I you.

What will happen to us? he asks, pressing his forehead against hers.

We have allowed the Watchers witness, and now we seek their mercy.

His body weakens, turns heavy. The blood from his wounds fills his lungs and he can no longer breathe. He pulls Wanheda closer. They hold each other. Above, the crows circle.

 

☼ ☀ ☼

 

He leans against a tree and lights a cigarette. If he’d known JV soccer had this many practices, he would have pushed Octavia to get her driver’s license already. It’s spring, not even soccer season — _that’s_ how much they practice. The field is so far in the distance he can’t make Octavia out among the players rushing to get the ball. He’s grateful it’s not too hot out; she never brings enough water.

Something heavy falls on his head.

“Ow, fuck,” he says, and looks down. It’s a half-eaten apple. He squats down to pick it up.

Above him, someone says, “Sorry!”

He looks up and there’s a girl in the tree, a book open on her stomach. She’s blonde and pretty, maybe a little older than Octavia. Probably a senior. She’s wearing one of those trendy expensive dresses Octavia is always mooning over when she goes shopping with her friends, and which their mom can’t afford so he ends up putting it on his credit card and claiming it’s an early birthday gift.

But none of that matters, because when their eyes lock it feels like an invisible hook is caught in his stomach and he’s being pulled rapidly through something, some kind of non-space, and he knows, somehow, she feels it too. The feeling makes him choke on the smoke in his throat, and he coughs into his fist.

“Are you okay?” she asks. She looks very comfortable in the tree, like she comes here a lot.

“I’m — fine, yeah.” He clears his throat and puts the cigarette out on the bark, tucks it behind his ear. “Do I know you?”

“I don’t think so, but it’s weird because you look, like, _really_ familiar.”

She puts the book between her teeth and climbs down from the tree with a surprising amount of grace. When her feet hit the ground she takes the apple from his hand, pulls the book out of her mouth, and puts the apple in it instead.

“That was just on the ground,” he says.

She shrugs as she chews. “My mom always says ‘God made dirt. Dirt don’t hurt.’”

“No doctor would agree with that.”

“She is a doctor.”

He laughs and says, "I'm Bellamy."

"Clarke." She squints up at him. “I’m pretty sure we know each other. Like, really know each other. I don’t know how, but we do.”

“Yeah, I get the same feeling.”

“Like I’ve dreamt about you.”

“Yeah,” he says, mildly freaking out about this whole interaction, in a good way, sort of.

“Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page. Let’s go on a date.”

If he still had his cigarette, he would have choked on it again. “When?”

“Now.”

“Where?”

She points to the edge of the woods, an opening where the trail begins. “Down that path there’s a river. We’ll sit by it and I’ll read to you.”

He notices she’s not wearing shoes, and when his eyes trail up her body, the rays of light through the clouds play a trick on him — for a moment, it looks as if her hair is red, and she has antlers.

“You don’t want to, like, talk? Get to know each other?”

But she’s already starting toward the path, apple in one hand and book in the other. She looks back at him and says, “We have our whole lives for that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings:  
> -Animal hunting (not described in detail)  
> -Blood  
> -Really a lot of blood  
> -One (1) suicide/self-harm reference (not described in detail)  
> -At two (2) points Wanheda gives the hunter weird magical Viagra and has sex with him in front of a bunch of people  
> -Stockholm Syndrome, but not like, anything worse than in Beauty & the Beast.  
> -The hunter is coerced into a relationship with Wanheda so the consent aspect is, by definition, dubious  
> -It's a story about death, so, yk, everyone dies at the end, but Wanheda and the hunter are rejoined in the afterlife (which is reality!!) so it has a happy ending.
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic, please consider [reblogging the photoset](https://bettsfic.tumblr.com/post/174778460827/wanheda-the-hunter-to-protect-his-sister-from).
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/bettsfic) and [tumblr](http://www.bettsfic.tumblr.com).


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